TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER. 469 



you can from personal investigation, prove me wrong, let, what I aver in 

 their favour, avail at least to mitigate the acrimony of your hostility. 



I have for many years been intimately acquainted with clergymen ; 

 not always from choice, because they are not, as a class, masculine and 

 free enough for my taste ; but because circumstances have thrown me 

 amongt them. My disinclination to them, as companions, in comparison 

 with sober men of the world, has certainly been augmented, rather than 

 otherwise, by the suspicion with which I have been regarded by them 

 on the score of my opinions. I have experienced from them the effects 

 of the unsocial caution, " Hie niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto." I 

 have never met with one of the class, with whom I would agree on the 

 subjects of Religion, Moral Philosophy, or Politics. I solemnly pro- 

 test I am not now creating, or embellishing even, in order to gain atten- 

 tion to my testimony. But I am sure you will give me credit for this, 

 at least, without such protestation. I am a parson to be sure ; but my 

 being a parson, instead of setting you at all against me, ought in reason 

 to have a contrary effect ; because it is, as I before hinted, a proof, pro 

 tanto, of my power to preserve myself from prejudices ; seeing that in 

 spite of my education and interests, I have persevered in differing, toto 

 coelo, from all the parsons I know. I profess the most complete indif- 

 ference as to what my radical friends might deem a suitable remunera- 

 tion for my services as a church-man. I am not merely quite content, 

 but positively desirous, to throw myself on the thorough reforming 

 party, for the amount of income to be enjoyed by myself out of the 

 tithe proceeds of a parish, should I ever possess a living. I would not 

 let the landlord, richer than myself, cheat me out of the property, re- 

 served for me by my country, though you (fie upon you for such truck- 

 ling to vulgar prejudices, such unphilosophical partiality) would abuse 

 me for taking my tithe-pig, instead of the landlord orfarmer for trying to 

 bully me out of it. But, I repeat it, I would gladly pay up to the country 

 all the proceeds, beyond what the least liberal set of my own radical 

 party might deem me deserving of. Nay, more than this, I would not 

 grumble if the country, however unwise I might deem the measure, 

 should oust me amongst other parsons of all emolument from the public 

 property of tithe, and bestow it all upon a system of public education, 

 in which parsons should take no part; if, instead of compelling parsons 

 to reside, and paying them very moderately, and forcing upon them the 

 education of the poor, as their main work, (all which improvements my 

 spirit yearns for, and all which the government may easily bring about) 

 the whole parsonic body were to be turned adrift to make way for a less 

 refined class of public servants. 



I would never submit to keep a religious shop, and thus depend upon the 

 custom of my less informed neighbours for a maintenance (as I find from you, 

 amongst other philosophers, would have to be the case, by recommending 



ryment of clergy by voluntary subscription of the neighbourhood.) But 

 would at once admit the right of the country to dispense with our 

 services altogether, and retire with a good grace into private life, where, 

 if other means of independent support were precluded, I could at least 

 enjoy the independence of digging for my livelihood, rather than cant 

 myself into support by subscription, as methodist parsons ordinarily do. 

 The possession of these sentiments qualify me, you will allow, to give 

 evidence in favour of parsons, before the arch-radical of all our party, 

 whoever he may be. 



